Everybody's
by inelegantprose
Summary: "Look at what Reconstruction does, it turns rogues into fathers and tragic princesses into incubators for new hope." Leia and Luke discuss her pregnancy.


She tilted her chin up and tried to sound diplomatic: "I suppose I just imagined I'd be older."

He nodded without saying anything, watching her carefully, trying to feel for her, her mind clasped shut.

"Or else far younger but that would've been something else entirely."

"Something else?"

"Well, we traditionally marry young. Lots of young aristocratic mothers. _Young_ young. Fairly indecent, I loathed it and Mother and Father held off the pressure."

"Yeah, lots of young mothers where I was from too…"

"Mm, exactly, and it begins to feel inescapable. When that was avoided I was so _relieved_ and I suppose…" She paused, again careful. "That I would either be older or avoid it altogether."

"Altogether?"

"You feel supremely young, don't you?"

This one he knew the answer to: " _Yes_."

"Well I rarely do but these days are an exception."

They settled into the silence. Again he reached out to her, but she was impenetrable.

"And it was different when nobody knew, not quite real – or rather, it's not that I didn't want anyone to know I just preferred being able to _choose_."

"Right…"

"And now everyone feels entitled to just _talk_ about it."

(To be fair, Leia's intended plan, to have the baby as quietly and with as little fanfare as possible, was not incredibly realistic – her presence at the Reconstruction base was near-constant and surely she never believed she'd be able to just privately expel a _human_ from her body. But, Luke had to admit, there was something particularly crummy about giving an extensive presentation to a team that still was ambivalent to briefings from a very young woman only to brush her hands over the just-barely-exposed-but-definitely-noticable-now-that-you-mentioned-it swell of her stomach and incite – well he knew she'd heard the unideal murmur _who knocked up the Ice Princess?_ because _she'd_ definitely heard Han's muttered and yet still cheeky, almost gleeful _that's my kid you're talking about_ because really everyone had, how could you not and, well, there they were.)

"I mean – people were always going to talk about it – you're _you_ , you know and also people were, you know – I mean I think people are excited." He tried to smile and make her smile. "I think it's been a really long time since a lot of people have had like, good news."

Instantly he knew it was the wrong thing to say: he saw her nod, resolve herself, steel herself, straighten her back with her _for the cause_ look and that really, really wasn't what he meant. "Of course. That's been my concern all along."

"That's not what I meant, you don't have to––"

"I know everyone has a part to play and I take that seriously but I am just – I think I have more to contribute, don't you, than having Han's child? I think I have more to – I thought I always did more than just look moderately attractive in white but now I just––"

"Lei?"

"And this is what we were fighting for, right?" She folded her hands neatly, unfolded them. "We fought for this. How awful, that the little princess of Alderaan in those desperate times had to learn to use a blaster – but now, a new era dawns, where she can relish in domestic bliss and have a _child_. Order restored, the war is over now, for five years we waited for this happy day and yearned and could only live one standard hour at a time with death threatening us and now that we're free – as though I wanted to _have his child_ when we met – as though I saw him and wanted to have his child – and everyone was waiting, right, for someone to melt me – what a pleasure, to see me wear my hair down, and wear color, and grow fat."

(Although, Luke, had to note, she wasn't doing any of those things – whatever had compelled her to shake out her hair on Endor had vanished, and it remained impeccably wound. As for color and growing fat – she still stuck to a daily uniform of white on white, and seemed to be going for an unnervingly-trim swallowed-a-helmet pregnancy figure…)

"I think people are just – happy to see you end up _happy_ , is all."

"I don't want to end up _anything_ – I don't want to _end up –_ I really am happy, I'm happy I just don't want it to end, I don't want my life to end."

"What! Your life isn't going to end!"

"I don't sound happy, I really am happy, I just wanted it to be for us, I want it to be part of my life, and his life, not Our Stories, it's like…" (She was struggling for words, Luke frowned, she never struggled.) "Like he's so happy. It's lovely. He's so good, he was more – more excited than I was because he's like that, I know he's nervous but he's happy – content. And I'm happy he's happy. But it's so much _easier_ for him… because this works for him as a conclusion, he will be _reformed_ – right, how roguish for so long and then he became noble, and at the end of it all, he casts aside his boyish ways because you know he's nearing forty now and settles down on some quiet world with his children and his _wife_. It will be his conclusion and it will be lovely and I love it but I don't want mine to be over yet, I don't want my life to be over, I don't want this to be the resolution of my life, my happy ending, my finally…"

"Leia, you don't have to––"

"No I know, though! I _know_ that, I don't think I will have to – stop fighting, stop working, I won't, I won't let them make me stop. I just don't want to – have the Rebellion's baby, if that makes sense. I don't want this to be the propaganda narrative. Even if I manage to carve out a life for myself as a – young mother, it will still be – I was so worried, too, that they would be angry? High Command – and they're not, because they _are_ considering the ways in which this can be used, I'm sure of it – look at what the Rebellion accomplished, look at what Reconstruction does, it turns rogues into fathers and tragic princesses into incubators for new hope. And I _don't_ want that for me and _I don't want that for my child_." She shoved her chin up higher and clasped her hands together. "I don't want us to belong to everyone. I don't want to belong to everyone again."

The words hung close to them, heavy and uncomfortable.

"Have you – you've talked to Han about this?"

"Of _course_ not."

"Lei…"

"You should've seen his face when I asked if we could keep it private for the three or four months – he looked like I'd just told him I soldered my hair up permanently – he thought I was ashamed of him, he's so… _ugh._ Ashamed of him, he's so unbelievably sensitive." For once, she smiled a little. "I don't need a _nother_ child to look after, honestly."

 _[You know it's okay if you're not happy all the time, right?]_ (He couldn't resist.)

(For a while she merely brushed up against his presence, holding the idea, said nothing. Then added softly.) _[I just. I feel too young to be anyone's mother.]_

 _[Yeah, I can't imagine having a kid now…]_

 _[It's not that I don't think I can handle it, or that he's better equipped because he's older. I suppose I just forgot – I still feel like I'm nineteen and immensely reliant on_ my _mother.]_

 _[Twenty-four s'not so different from nineteen.]_

 _[Nineteen-year-old Leia was a virgin who'd never killed and weighed every choice through the lens of what her father would do.]_

 _[I'll be around to help, you know. It won't just be you two.]_

 _[I told you, I don't want him to be everyone's baby…]_

 _[Sure, but he's my nephew.]_

 _[Nineteen-year-old Leia was an only child, you know...]_

Luke grinned. "Poor thing. I pity her." 

_[Everyone else does.]_

"Tsk. Such drama."

"Oh, haven't you heard? It's _hormones_. I swear, no one is going to take me seriously for _months_. Though that's assuming. people ever took me seriously."

"Trust me. People take you seriously."

"Voice of the people Luke Skywalker."

"I wouldn't worry about not being taken seriously, Leia."

"Even when I'm exploding out of my sweater?" She scowled at her midriff – "I'm such a moron."

"You're _barely_ showing!"

"It's awful, I hate to have people looking at my body."

"Least now that it's out you can go see medical? You seem too small for _four months–_ "

"You really are insufferable, aren't you?"

"Looking out for my little sister."

At that she laughed – really laughed, almost guffawed, covering her face in her hands. "Oh gods, _Luke_ …" She doubled over, gasping, giggling. "Luke – is everything going to be different now?" (Was she laughing or crying?)

For a second he wanted to ask, _different from what?_ Was there really a routine so established to be called their normal? She'd technically been pregnant almost the entirety of the time since Endor, and before that everyone's lives had been even more frantic, someone always disappeared or in training or carbonite or…

Which, he was realizing now, was the _point_ – the life she wasn't ready to lose. "I don't think it'll be this different," he said gently, and he resisted the sudden urge to take her hand. "Honestly, it'll probably be like always – crazy, high stakes, dangerous, not sleeping. But like, just with a loaf-of-bread-sized human strapped to one of us all the time." He poked her side, grin/frowning. "Or, at this rate, a dinner roll. You have to _eat_ , Lee."

She looked up at him and for the yet again he saw how tired she looked, even as she smiled back. "I think Loaf-of-Bread is a very sweet name. Much cuter than Dinner Roll. Thank you."

"Dinner Roll only works for a Solo – tell him to hurry it up, okay? Can't have a bastard nephew."

"It'd be terrible PR," she agreed, and her smile was weird and crooked and resigned.


End file.
